The Conversion of Saul of Tarsus
INTRODUCTORY WORDS
We have read, how, years ago, an outstanding infidel felt that if the Resurrection of Christ, and the Conversion of Saul could be demonstrated to be false, no more than a hoax then, the foundation stones of Christianity would be destroyed. In trying to establish, however, that Saul of Tarsus was never converted, he discovered that the historicity of the Bible account of his conversion was unimpeachable, and he, himself, became converted.
In our treatment of the Bible story of Saul's conversion, we call your attention, at the outset, to a phase of the salvation of this great persecutor, which many have overlooked.
I. THE FINAL STRUGGLE OF A SOUL AGAINST GOD (Acts 9:1; Acts 9:5)
We accept Acts 9:5 as an illumination of Acts 9:1. Saul, was kicking against the pricks. That is, God was prodding Saul's consciousness with a call to be saved; more and more Saul was being convinced of the error of his ways, and of the genuineness of the Christians' Christ; however, the more he was convinced the more stubbornly did he fight against God and the saints.
Now mark the significance of the words, "And Saul yet breathing out threatenings and slaughter." He was yet doing it; he was doing it yet. His "breathings" were heavier, and louder, but they were only the "breathings" that precede collapse. Saul was about to succumb. The end of his self-life was near, and he was about to enter into a new life in Christ Jesus.
Had you approached him, as Saul went to the authorities seeking letters of commission to bring the saints of Damascus bound to Jerusalem, and had you said, "Saul, these Christians are not fanatics following some strange god; they are truly saved, and their Christ is the Jehovah God; under whose banner you profess to fight." Had you so ap-preached Saul, he would have utterly denied the truth, of your words.
However, it was true that Saul, with stubborn will, and hardened heart, was beginning to realize that he was fighting against God. The things which were happening every day, and which had been happening for some time were making great inroads on Saul's convictions concerning the Christ.
Why, then, did Saul yet breathe out threatenings and slaughter? Why did his antagonism against the Christians increase?
We believe that his actions were the result of a strongly prejudiced soul, unwilling to admit its sin. Saul had long boasted his goodness. Concerning the Law he was blameless. He had lived according to the strictest sect of the Jews. He was a devotee of the Jews' religion. He was a Pharisee. He had much in the flesh in which to boast. He was an old-fashioned, Judaistic Jew. He also had much, personally, to gain by following along the line of the orthodox faith, and much to lose by following Christ.
In persecuting saints, Saul was putting himself in line of promotion among the religionists of his day. In fighting Christ, he was paving his way to Sanhedrin honors. To his youthful mind, the Christian confession could mean, to him nothing but disaster. Socially, religiously, and financially it behoved Saul to stand in with the "powers" in Israel.
Therefore, against the encroachments of the new faith gripping his own soul, he fought with madness. He argued to himself that the old established Judaism, must be right, because the scribes and Pharisees followed in its wake. He had himself sat at Gamaliel's feet; and education mocked the new faith in Christ.
At first, Saul verily thought he was doing the will of God. While he was plainly feathering his own nest, he tried to convince himself that he was likewise fighting error, and fanaticism, and helping to put down a most dangerous foe to a religious system that had grown up during the centuries with a history of Divine favor and revelation that had marked it as Divine. Saul counted that he was standing with God, because he stood in the line of Abraham, and of Isaac, and of Jacob. He argued that the God of the Prophets and of David, was his God.
Over the other hand, Saul contended that Christ was antagonistic to the fathers, and to the God of the fathers. Saul had followed under Gamaliel's instruction, the whole course of Jewish history, and he had unshaken faith in the God who had brought Israel out of Egypt, and had established her in the land of promise.
Blinded as he was, Saul never once saw in Christ the complement of all that the fathers had believed. He knew not that Christ was the very fulfilment of the prophecies of Holy Writ. He knew not that Abraham had seen Christ's day and had exulted. He knew not that Moses had lived and died looking toward the recompense which the Advent of Christ would bring. He knew not that David had always had before his face the Coming of the very Christ whom he now hated.
To be sure Saul knew the Prophets and believed the Prophets. He knew that the Messiah was to come. However Saul had utterly repudiated the One who had come, was the Messiah. He was caught in the sweep of rabbinical prejudices. He was carried along by the sway of popular religious resentment against the Nazarene.
At the stoning of Stephen, Saul had kept the clothes of the men who slew the great apologist. He was consenting to his death. His vote was in favor of the martyrdom of the man who was filled with the Holy Ghost and wisdom.
Now, as he started along the way to Damascus, he was, himself, leading the crowd against the Christians.
II. THE GOADS THAT PRICKED (Acts 9:5)
We wonder if we can follow somewhat, at least, the very happenings that goaded Saul with the growing conviction that he was fighting against God. We may be able to discover some of them let us see.
1. The shining of a martyr's face. We mentioned this in a former sermon, and will not now dwell upon it. However, there was something that Saul of Tarsus could not explain. The sublimity of Stephen's faith, mirrored in his shining countenance, as he died triumphant death, never left Saul nor could Saul comprehend the meaning of Stephen's words, "I see the heavens opened, and the Son of Man standing on the right hand of God." Saul could not understand the spirit that could lead a dying martyr to say, "Lay not this sin to their charge."
All in all, Saul found it impossible to rub that scene from his memory. Here was one of the "goads" that pricked him.
2. The serene sublimity of the faith of many Christians. Saul was playing havoc with the Churches. He was entering into homes here and there, and dragging out Christians whom he committed to prison. Their quiet mien, their willingness to suffer for Christ's sake; the songs that the Christians sang in the night, all gave token to the reality of their faith. Saul could not reason through these witnesses to saving and keeping power.
Saul knew that the Christians possessed something that he and his co-religionists did not possess. There was an unseen hand that guided them. They manifested a joy, and love, and peace, that was altogether foreign to Saul's comprehension.
These formed an added goad, which pricked Saul of Tarsus.
3. The members of his own family who had been saved. Among those who had received the Lord Jesus, were Andronicus and Junia, Saul's kinsmen. These were in Christ before him, and they were of note among the Apostles. In addition there was another kinsman of Saul, named Herodian, who may have been saved before Saul was saved. The faith and prayers of these kinsmen were another goad to prick Saul. It was impossible for Saul to shake off their pleas and their prayers. He no doubt resisted them, and they perhaps felt that they had made no impression on their youthful and brilliant relative. But God knew better. Out-wardly Saul was always on the offensive against Christ, hut inwardly he was weakening in his sincerity as an antagonist.
III. SAUL'S GRANDSTAND PLAY (Acts 9:2)
Saul had gone to the high priest and had "desired of him letters to Damascus to the Synagogue, that if he found any of this way, whether they were men or women, he might bring them bound unto Jerusalem."
This was Saul's final stroke. With the sounding of trumpets and the glitter of swords, he had started off. Fighting against God, he went on his way. He went smouldering an ever-increasing fire of conviction, that he was wrong, Mid the glamor and glare of a professed persecutor, he was himself almost ready to become the persecuted. No one knew this but God and himself. The saints at Damascus, including Ananias, had heard that he was on the way to Damascus. They naturally feared his coming. They felt that he was without heart, and sympathy. He wielded against them the sword that knew no pity and no remorse.
Thus Saul journeyed on, a peer among persecutors. He journeyed on to honor and to fame. He journeyed on a vassal of Satan. The chief priest and the rulers in the Jews' religion felt that, in Saul, they had a trusted and invincible ally. The devil felt that, in Saul, his own cause was safe.
There was, however, another eye that watched that ruthless march. Christ looked down. He knew every emotion of the thoughts of Saul's heart. He knew the pricking goads, that were piercing him.
What did God see in that grandstand play? He saw a man kicking against the pricks. He saw a man unwilling to yield? Yes, but God saw more. He saw a man, who, once fully convinced, would be willing to count all but loss for Christ. He saw an intrepid worker; a servant, panoplied to pray as valiantly as he had formerly fought. He saw a missionary who through fire and flood, undaunted would continue faithful to the end. Christ saw in Saul, saved and sanctified in Christ Jesus, a man who would never flutter a flag of truce.
That young man, before he was born, was chosen of God, That young man, from his mother's womb was called by God's grace. God had environed him, and led him in a way that would finally perfect him as a warrior of the Cross, mighty in word and in deed.
Thus it was, that while others marked the grandstand-play, the march of a seemingly tyrannical foe; God watched the march of a man kicking under a growing and deepening conviction that he was wrong, all wrong. God saw that the hour for the last needed goad had come.
As he marched on his way, what questions were throbbing in Saul's brain. He must have been asking himself, "Why did Stephen's face shine?" Or, "I wonder if Stephen was under an hallucination when he said that he saw Jesus standing at God's right hand?" "I wonder where these Christians get their power to sing as they die?" "They count it all joy to suffer for their faith. Why?" Saul was asking himself, "Can it be that I am wrong?" "Am I fighting against God?"
Thus the stage play was not all a roseate scene. There were misgivings and questionings and fears. Then, the unexpected came to pass.
IV. THE MIRACULOUS LIGHT AND VOICE (Acts 9:3)
God knew just when and how to give the final prick of the goad. Read Acts 9:3 : "And as he journeyed, he came near Damascus: and suddenly there shined round about him a light from heaven."
The light shone suddenly, but the steps that led up to this great demonstration of glory, took many days. Conversion itself is sudden, but, not so, the conviction of sin, and the process of preparation of mind and heart that lead to climactic and regenerating faith.
Before the light of life breaks on the soul, the soul must be made ready for the light just as the soil is made ready for the seed.
God's light shining down on Saul of Tarsus came to dispel his darkness. It came as a great illumination, enforcing the Deity of Christ. Saul had been a conscience-stricken, but conscientious objector to the Lord's Christ. He had had some glimmerings of light, but he was still walking in the shadows. He must have felt that his way might be wrong, that his persecutions might be unjust, but he was not sure he was endeavoring to shut out the light, In giving this unusual demonstration, God had a twofold purpose. First, God was, by His grace, doing that which He deemed right in order to save from death a great soul, struggling in the mist of doubt. Secondly, God was doing to an individual, what He is yet to do to a race. Of this second dealing the far-flung meaning of Saul's conversion we will give a later sermon.
Just now we insist that every soul is in need of light. He may complain, alleging that God, today, does not give so great and so miraculous a light to the multitudes of the unsaved who walk in darkness. That is not true. The darkness may not comprehend the light, but a light of accumulative power is shining today upon all men. We who live in the twentieth century have the light of a completed Gospel, and of a ripened spiritual ministry. We have the light of two millenniums of Christian living and service. We have the light of thousands of sermons, that illuminate the glory of Christ, and set forth the efficacy of the Cross.
No man living today dare complain that Saul of Tarsus was given more light than he has received. For, in addition to the light that Saul had (for that light still shines); we have Paul's ministry, and messages, and much more besides.
V. THE PROSTRATION OF A PROUD SPIRIT (Acts 9:4)
"And he fell to the earth." We have long since discovered that the way to get up, is getting down; that humiliation is the pathway to exaltation. The broken and the contrite heart, God will not despise. If some one objects that Saul did not willingly humble himself that God forcefully struck him down, we agree, but with this reservation, that when God struck Saul down, Saul, succumbed, and willingly yielded the now flickering torch, of his selfish pride.
Saul certainly could have stiffened his neck against the light of God. That Saul received the Lord with open heart and mind is seen in the aftermath. The falling form of the proud persecutor, was the beginning of his rising into a new life in Christ Jesus.
The Lord Jesus followed Saul's collapse, with a voice saying, "Saul, Saul, why persecutest thou Me?"
Perhaps, had Saul sought to justify his evil course, he might have answered with many words. Saul might have said some such things as these:
"I persecute You, because the men Who sit in Moses' seat, and the men who stand at the head of the religious system which has a record of antiquity and of direct Divine revelation, are solidly against You."
"I persecute You because I love my nation, and revere the memory of the fathers, and You have bitterly condemned my nation and its rulers. You entered into the Temple and drove out our money-changers with a whip of cords. You called the scribes and Pharisees, 'hypocrites,' 'a generation of vipers who could not escape the damnation of hell.'"
"I persecute You because I see in Your teachings the collapse of many cherished customs, which rabbinical lore have fastened upon our nation."
"I persecute You because You have prophesied the downfall and collapse of our nation. You have said that our House is left unto us desolate; You have said that our Temple shall be thrown down; and that a great tribulation awaits our nation, greater than any the world has ever known."
Saul might have said some such things, but he did not. He certainly had been drilled in some such conceptions. The High Priest, and the rabbi, with whom Saul associated, had no end of seemingly good arguments against the Lord Jesus Christ. They fought back, like tigers, against the accusations of Peter and the Apostles that they had been the murderers of the Son of God. They sought from every possible viewpoint, to justify all that they, in their villainy had done. And, Saul of Tarsus followed in their train. He had stood with them, and for them, and against all that opposed them.
What did Saul now do? First, he trembled. A fear gripped his soul. His mouth was shut. He found no words with which to justify himself. He had come to the end of his own road. He trembled because Heaven had stopped him in his mad career.
An angel blocked the progress of Balaam, yet Balaam had justified himself, and had gone on his way to Balac. Not so with Saul of Tarsus. He was too genuine a soul to do as Balaam had done. His very fiber was integrity itself. He had always lived an intensive, honorable life. He trembled because a tremendous conviction was gripping his soul. He began to see himself, a dupe of prejudice, swayed by darkening unbelief.
Not alone did Saul tremble, he was astonished. God was revealing two things, simultaneously to Saul first, the Son of God was being revealed; and secondly the sin of his own heart was being revealed.
Saul never forgot that hour. He never forgot the trembling and the astonishment of his own soul, when that light shone in.
Would that some one had the gift to give us, to see ourselves as God doth see us!
What astonishment would be the sinner's if he could see the glory of the Person of Christ on the one hand, and the shame of his own life on the other hand!
In our next sermon we will consider the question, which Saul asked, "Who art Thou, Lord?